1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for managing sales of advertisements for a broadcast media. More particularly, this invention relates a system that provides an interface between databases that provide programming and advertising information. Still more particularly, this invention relates to providing an interface between the various databases containing information needed for selling advertising over a media.
2. The Prior Art
In today's society, there are many forms of broadcast media. Some examples of broadcast media include, but are not limited, television, radio, and the Internet. Typically, the broadcasts are of scheduled programs, which may include shows, or other scheduled events. One means of generating revenues for broadcasters is by selling advertising over the media during the scheduled programming. Advertising is typically sold in time slots during which an advertiser may place an advertisement or commercial for goods or services provided by advertiser during a broadcast. The time slots are typically five seconds, ten seconds, fifteen seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds or a minute.
The time slots are usually sold based on the programming content and the time the programming is broadcast. The prices of the advertisements typically vary based on the program content, time of broadcast and the broadcast area. For example, a time slot during a national television broadcast of the Super Bowl is significantly more than a time slot during a late night movie broadcast by a local television station over a cable television system. Hence, one typically sees advertisements from large, nationwide advertisers during the Super Bowl and advertisements for smaller, regional or local advertisers during the late night movie on the local television station broadcast over a cable television system or broadcast network affiliates.
In order to sell the timeslots, broadcasters maintain an advertising sales department. The advertising sales department may be part of a broadcaster's organization or an outside firm hired to sell the advertising. Salespeople that sell the time slots are typically called Account Executives.
In order to sell the time slots, an Account Executive typically relies on multiple software applications to implement business systems needed to process the information needed to sell the time slots. For example, one application may be a database for storing programming content, a second application may be a database of ratings for programs, a third application may be a database of special offers or promotions provided by the broadcaster, a fourth application may be a database for advertisements to be inserted into broadcast programs. Other applications may include, but are not limited to, a client database storing client information, and a billing database storing billing information for sold time slots sold to clients.
Since multiple systems are used, there is often a duplication of inputting data into the separate systems. This duplication of inputs often causes mistakes in the inputs and adds additional time to the process. Furthermore, the Account Executive must have several applications operating at the same time in order to access the information. This can be quite confusing changing between applications to find the desired information.
A further problem is that a lot of systems that the Account Executives use rely on paper transactions. Typically, the Account Executives rely on a purchase order contract that is signed by a customer to sell a time slot. This purchase order must be produced manually and input into the system manually. This allows mistakes to be made while the paper transaction is generated and processed.
The above-identified problems are compounded for broadcasters that sell advertisements for many different stations or channels broadcasting in an area. One example of a broadcaster that sells advertisements for many different stations or channels is a local cable television company. Cable television is a common broadcast medium in which a local cable television company transmits programming for different stations over wiring connecting the local cable company office to subscribers.
The local cable company may sell advertisements for broadcast programs on each television channel the cable company broadcasts and different regions to which the company broadcasts. Since the cable company may have many different broadcast channels and many different regions that may receive the broadcasts, an advertiser has many choices of programs to by advertisement during the broadcast. Thus, there is need in the art for a system that would integrate the various systems used by an advertising sales department to sell advertisements for broadcast programs.